


Ingress

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [11]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 22:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “Well,” Jared says. “This is kind of my first date, so.”Bryce is quiet, and Jared’s suddenly very aware how immature that must have sounded to him. Like, the guy’s twenty, and hot, and rich, and probably has had tons of — well, Jared doesn’t even know if he’s gay, he could have totally had girlfriends, or boyfriends, or both — and Jared just admitted it was his first date, and now he’s probably rethinking basically everything about —“Second,” Bryce says.





	Ingress

Jared knows that the whole point of brunch is that it generally takes place much closer to lunch than breakfast. That’s kind of awful, since Jared finds it basically impossible to fall back asleep after he gets attacked by his phone at six in the morning. 

He doesn’t get out of bed until he hears the household start to move around, after hours he’s spent trying to get some more sleep and failing utterly, because every time he starts to drift off, his brain starts going _date_ or _brunch_ or _we fucking kissed_ , and then he’s right back to wide awake.

That and an, uh, initially leisurely session of what his friend Brody calls ‘self-care’, that does not stay leisurely. Like. At all. Because in the past Jared’s had his imagination, and it’s a good imagination, but he’s never actually had, like _supporting evidence_. He knows what Bryce’s mouth feels like against his, knows how his fingers curled around the back of Jared’s neck, tight, like a claim on him, how they felt like a live wire directly attached to Jared’s dick, knows how he looks with his forehead pressed against Jared’s, his mouth right there, lips wet and pink.

Like Jared said, it doesn’t stay leisurely.

Jared creeps out of bed after he hears his parents talking downstairs, takes a shower. He spends a little more time there than he should, taking care of himself again. Whatever, no shame. By the time he gets out of the shower, something smells fucking awesome, so Jared breaks out of his mooning and self-care routine for food. Which is also self-care, just a different kind. Man cannot live on masturbation alone.

Jared probably should go easy on breakfast, because brunch is happening, but his dad made waffles, which are maybe a once a month, got the Sunday off kind of thing, and they’re to be treated with respect. Jared doesn’t want his dad getting discouraged by Jared not giving his waffles their due.

The furthest Jared’s been from his phone since he woke up with it digging into his face is when it was sitting on the sink during his shower, and he practically jumps out of his seat when it buzzes in his back pocket, his sister giving him a weird look when he pulls it out.

 _pick u up at 12?_ Bryce has sent.

 _Sounds good_ , Jared texts back with great restraint, because that’s three whole hours away, which feels like _forever_. He waits for his phone to tick through the minutes, one, two, three, before he sends it, because he doesn’t want to look like he’s been waiting for Bryce to text or anything. He meant to wait five minutes, but obviously that doesn’t happen. 

“Who’re you texting so early?” Erin asks, with this fake sweet voice she always uses in front of their parents. It draws their attention to the last thing he wants them paying attention to, and he bets she knows it, too.

Jared gives her the middle finger under the table, and she smiles when she sees it, as fake sweet as her voice.

“Who’re you texting ever?” Jared asks, and gets twin parent dagger eyes and an ‘apologise to your sister’ as a result, but at least they don’t pursue the whole texting angle. Jared is pretty sure he’d let something leak about the whole not platonic thing if asked more than casually, and he has zero faith they wouldn’t want to meet the guy, or at least peer out the window as he left, and then it’s game fucking over. The only people he knows who are bigger Flames fans than he is are his parents.

Jared suddenly has a terrifying image of Bryce knocking on the door, his mom or dad answering.

 _Let me know when you’re outside my place_ , Jared texts under the table, and gets a thumbs up almost immediately, like maybe Bryce is also glued to his phone. 

Jared hides his grin with a giant forkful of waffles.

The next three hours drag. He makes an attempt at gaming, but his attention span’s for shit. The offseason sucks for hockey distractions in the form of news and rumours, so he ends up halfheartedly clicking through Buzzfeed. He doesn’t even _like_ Buzzfeed.

 _outside_ , Bryce texts at twelve on the nose, like he maybe took Jared’s thing about being late to heart.

“Where are you off to?” his mom asks after he gets downstairs, skipping half the steps on his way down, and Jared freezes with one shoe on. She’s not asking it pointedly, so here is zero reason for him to have his back up right now, he reminds himself, before he says something stupid like ‘none of your business, _god_ , mom’, the way Erin might.

“Grabbing lunch with a friend from camp,” Jared says, which is mostly true. Like, from camp? True. Lunch? It’s lunch time, and for some reason saying brunch sounds suspicious. Why would two dudes get brunch together? Jared’s never had brunch with anyone but his family in his entire life. So lunch. Lunch sounds less loaded.

Friend is…also maybe not exactly the truth, but like. Jared’s not _lying_.

“Nice you’re making friends,” Jared’s mom says, and Jared decides to completely ignore how condescending that sounds. Jared can make friends. Jared has friends. Jared even has an actual non-lie friend from camp. “If you won’t be home for dinner, let me or your dad know.”

“Will do,” Jared says. He really hopes he won’t be home for dinner. Now he’s thinking about Bryce’s offer to catch another movie, and sitting pressed together in the dark sounds a lot more appealing than it did before. Not that it wasn’t — well, it was _something_ — but this time Jared would know it isn’t just that Bryce doesn’t have any sense of personal space, that it’s contact with _intent_.

He’ll even let Bryce pick Entourage, just as long as they can make out during it.

Getting ahead of yourself there, Matheson. First, brunch. Then making out.

Bryce looks unfairly good idling outside Jared’s house, all tan and sunglasses and shirt tight enough it’s impossible not to notice he’s cut. Objectively, this is basically what Bryce has looked like most of the days since Jared has met him. And yet.

“Hungry?” Bryce says, as Jared slides into the passenger seat, glancing back at his place to make sure no one’s peeking through the window or something. His parents aren’t nosy, so he has no idea why he’s so paranoid about this.

“I’m a seventeen year old dude,” Jared says, and when Bryce frowns a little, “That means obviously. Let’s brunch this thing.”

Let’s brunch this thing. That wasn’t words. Or, that was words, but that was not a collection of words that should ever go together, and especially shouldn’t exit Jared’s stupid, stupid mouth.

Somehow Bryce does not seem to realise Jared just word vomited all over him. Probably because he’s uttered worse without realising what _he_ said was word vomit. Jared’s infatuated, not suddenly blind to Bryce’s faults. That’s comforting, honestly. If he starts thinking Bryce is spouting Shakespeare or something, he’s giving Raf permission to slap sense into him.

Raf. Damn, there is about zero chance that Raf isn’t going to know something’s going on with them within a minute of camp tomorrow, is there? Jared should probably let him know before he figures it out himself. 

Bryce drives them downtown, which has Jared wondering if he lives around here, has a fancy apartment right downtown, or a huge house closer to the airport or the practice facility or what. Bryce seems more like the right downtown kind of guy, but Jared doesn’t know how to come out and ask if he lives nearby without it sounding all ‘wanna show me your place? And your etchings?’.

Brunch before making out, Jared, c’mon.

The place is kind of fancy for what’s basically trumped up breakfast. There’s truffles in one of the egg dishes, like some cliche of pretentious. It ticks off a whole bunch of Jared’s pretentious bingo ingredients: the truffles, prosciutto — just do bacon like a regular place — six (six!) types of eggs benedict, quinoa, freaking matcha fondue. But at least they have the usual eggs and toast and hash browns deal, even though it’s almost twenty bucks. He gets that, and then chirps the shit out of Bryce for getting the eggs benedict with truffles.

“It’s good,” Bryce protests. “And it cost like the same as yours, c’mon.”

It practically did. These better be the best scrambled eggs Jared’s ever had, seriously, because what the hell.

The scrambled eggs aren’t the best he’s ever had, but they’re pretty damn good, and the hash brown is almost McDonald’s hash brown good. And Jared would kill a man for a McDonald’s hash brown.

“You want to try some of mine?” Bryce asks, and him asking is kind of adorable, like, the most cliche coupley thing ever (stop getting ahead of yourself, Jared), so he’d say yes, but —

“Mushrooms are the devil,” Jared says.

“There’s no mushrooms in this,” Bryce says.

Jared blinks. “What do you think truffles _are_?” he asks.

“I thought it was like…the chocolate?” Bryce says. “Aren’t those truffles?”

Jared stares at him. “You thought you were ordering eggs with chocolate?” he asks.

“Like sometimes chocolate can be kind of bitter and stuff,” Bryce says. “I’ve had like, meat with chocolate before.”

“Oh my god,” Jared says. “You thought truffles were chocolate. I literally cannot with you.”

“They…are, right?” Bryce asks. “Godiva’s not selling, like, chocolate flavoured mushrooms?”

“I’d be banging my head on the table right now if we weren’t in public,” Jared says, and watches Bryce frantically typing something on his phone, probably ‘are there two kinds of truffles?’

He likes this dude. Like, he really likes this dude, and he still wants to make out with him, and maybe see if holding hands deserves the rep it has, and the guy thought there was chocolate in his eggs. Jared is judging himself almost as hard as he’s judging Bryce right now.

“Oh hey, _that’s_ why they taste like mushrooms,” Bryce says, like he’s had some revelation. “Because they _are_.”

Jared stuffs a piece of toast in his mouth so he doesn’t say anything he’ll regret.

*

They linger over brunch long enough that the place turns over once, then again, and the waitress starts looking kind of pointedly at them, so Jared’s pretty sure that’s their cue to go.

“Wanna go hit up a park?” Bryce asks when they get outside.

“Reusing your ideas already?” Jared asks, instead of ‘but we can’t make out at a park’. Though that does make him want to protest. Never mind that a movie would also be reusing his idea. They can make out there, so Jared is obviously in favour of it.

“It’s a nice day,” Bryce says, which is true, Jared guesses, but —

Well, it’s not like he can argue it without admitting his reasoning, and that’s a little…he’s not going to do that.

They end up walking to a nearby one after Bryce makes a stop by his car and pulls out the Flames blanket from the trunk again, tucks it under his arm. It’s still kind of ridiculous, but now Jared thinks it’s also cute that he’s got a blanket for his team. Great. Everything’s cute now. Even the truffle thing seems kind of cute with the distance of time.

Jared, that was barely an hour ago, what is _wrong_ with you.

Right downtown on a day like this, there isn’t anywhere nearly as secluded as last time. Even that spot wouldn’t have been secluded enough for making out, and they definitely aren’t here. Like, they can’t try the whole holding hand thing, or even sit too close to one another, considering the fact Bryce is a Flame and the blanket is a damn beacon that dares people to put together his face with the concept of the Flames and make the connection.

Jared’s changed his mind about the blanket.

Speaking of making a connection, Jared should probably bring up the fact that Raf’s definitely going to know something’s going on with them. He doesn’t want to, but. He should.

“Is it cool if I tell Raf?” Jared asks. “Like. About you know.”

Bryce frowns. “Uh,” he says, which sounds like ‘no’.

“He knew I was into you before I did,” Jared says. “So there’s about a zero percent chance he isn’t going to notice something’s up even if I don’t tell him. Just FYI.”

“You’re into me?” Bryce asks.

“Don’t be dumb,” Jared says. “You think I just randomly go on dates with dudes I’m not into?”

“I don’t know,” Bryce says. “I mean, it’s not like I know your dating history or whatever.”

“Well,” Jared says. “This is kind of my first date, so.”

Bryce is quiet, and Jared’s suddenly very aware how immature that must have sounded to him. Like, the guy’s twenty, and hot, and rich, and probably has had tons of — well, Jared doesn’t even know if he’s gay, he could have totally had girlfriends, or boyfriends, or both — and Jared just admitted it was his first date, and now he’s probably rethinking basically everything about —

“Second,” Bryce says.

“What?” Jared asks.

“It’s your second date,” Bryce says, nudging his knee against Jared’s. “Your first date was yesterday.”

“Okay,” Jared says, nudging his knee back. “My second date, then.”

“You can tell Rafael, I guess,” Bryce says. “Like, if he’s going to know anyway.”

“What’s your deal with Raf, dude?” Jared asks.

“I dunno,” Bryce says. 

“You totally know,” Jared says. “C’mon, the guy’s crazy nice, there’s no reason—”

“You’re just like, always hanging around him,” Bryce says.

“Oh my god, are you _jealous_?” Jared says.

“No!” Bryce says, too quickly, and Jared bursts out laughing.

“Well, you _are_ always hanging around him,” Bryce mutters.

“Uh, yeah, that’s what friends do, Bryce,” Jared says.

“Well I didn’t know if it was friends or not,” Bryce says. “Whatever.”

“He’s got a girlfriend,” Jared says. “Also, he’s way too nice for me, even if he did like dudes.”

“Hey,” Bryce says. “I’m nice.”

“To me, yeah,” Jared allows, “But Raf’s nice, like, in general. To everyone.”

“I’m nice to everyone,” Bryce says, then, “Don’t mention the Oilers fan.”

“I mean,” Jared says. “You just mentioned him for me. And I was going to go with like, the dozen unsportsmanlike penalties.”

“The refs are so fucking biased against me,” Bryce mutters.

“You play like an asshole, dude,” Jared says.

“ _You_ play like an asshole,” Bryce retorts, if you can even call it a retort.

“Whoa,” Jared says. “Look at the expert chirps from this guy. Teach me your ways, wise—”

Bryce shoves his shoulder lightly, face practically a mirror of the sulky thing he gets going when he’s sent to the box, and Jared both wants to laugh at it and kiss it. He goes with the first one, because public.

Jared’s never been the sunbathing type, but it’s the kind of day that’s perfect for dozing in the sun, which he guesses is kind of what sunbathing is, and is exactly what they end up doing, just enough distance between them to be normal looking if someone swings by for an autograph, but close enough that if Jared reached his fingers out he’d touch Bryce’s hand. Doing basically nothing with someone has never felt like this _much_ , and it’s kind of scary how much he wants to keep doing nothing with Bryce.

Though he also _really_ wishes they could swap nothing for make outs, but that’s not exactly a new thought.

“I should get home for dinner,” Jared says, when it gets around time he’ll have to text his mom if he isn’t going to be. Jared’s going to see Bryce tomorrow, and every week day after that, and he doesn’t want to seem, like. Overeager, or something. Everyone knows if you binge on something you get sick of it, and just because Jared isn’t even close to sick of it doesn’t mean Bryce isn’t.

Bryce looks disappointed, or at least Jared wants Bryce to look disappointed, so that’s what he sees, because he’s kind of upset Bryce doesn’t argue, just bundles up his stupid blanket and walks back to the car with him.

Bryce puts the top on before he gets in, which is weird. Like, if you’re the kind of person who buys a convertible in a city where you can probably only take advantage of it a third of the year, max, and Bryce is obviously that kind of person, it’s weird not to take advantage of perfect convertible weather.

“What’s with the roof suddenly?” Jared asks.

“Okay, this is going to sound super pathetic?” Bryce says.

“This’ll be good,” Jared says.

“Like, it’s still light out, Bryce says. 

“I don’t follow,” Jared says. “Wouldn’t that be a reason to keep it off?”

“But with the top on there’s more privacy?” Bryce says. “And I don’t want to drop you off without kissing you goodbye, so.”

That. Does not sound pathetic. Which probably means Jared is also pathetic.

He smiles down at his lap.

“That cool with you?” Bryce asks.

“Yeah, that’s cool with me,” Jared says, and smiles wider when Bryce squeezes his arm before starting the car.


End file.
